Google Adwords Paid Search Advertising In Close 2006 Us Senate ...
Rimm-Kaufman Group LLC
2300 Commonwealth Drive
Charlottesvil e VA 22906
www.rimmkaufman.com
434.970.1010
More information:
George Michie, 434.970.1010
Press Release For Immediate Distribution: November 6, 2006 1p EST
# # #
Google AdWords Paid Search Advertising
In Close 2006 US Senate Races:
Allen, Brown, Burns, Casey, Chafee, Corker, Dewine, Ford, Kyl,
Pederson, Santorum, Talent, Tester, and Webb
Alan Rimm-Kaufman, PhD
George Michie
Larry Becker
Study Summary
To observe the use of paid search advertising in the final hours of the 2006 US midterm elections,
we queried Google for the names of candidates running in swing Senate races. We observed:
• Political pay-per-click advertisers prefer Google. Few political advertisers use Yahoo
Paid Search.
• There are few political advertisers: the average search results page for queries in this
study returned only 3.7 ads.
• The most prevalent advertisers within this query set were Accoona (search engine),
Gather.com (social networking), CafePress (retailer), and GOPSenators.com (National
Republican Senatorial Committee).
• “Red” ads (pro-Republican or anti-Democrat) outnumbered “blue ads” (pro-Democrat or
anti-Republican) two-to-one.
• Blue ads were three times more likely to be negative than red ads.
• No campaign ads referenced President Bush.
• Iraq and Al-Qaeda were only mentioned only twice (stopidioticforeignpolicy.com, against
Jim Webb)
• Only two ads linked directly to videos (against George Al en: “macaca” and prescription
drugs).
• Blue ads were longer than red ads. There was no difference in the length of words in
blue and red ads.
• Blue ads were more likely to include an exclamation point. Red ads were more likely to
contain a question mark.
We conclude that paid political advertising on the search engines is stil in its infancy. Note the
cost of search advertising is a fraction of the cost of television advertising, yet often has
comparable reach.
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We anticipate search engine marketing wil become increasingly prevalent to the American
political process in coming elections. In the 2008 elections, we predict political advertisers wil
completely fil the paid search spots on the first page of Google search results pages; political
advertisers wil advertise heavily on Yahoo; political advertisers wil use more video; and
Democrats wil increase spending to match Republicans.
Method
We queried Google and Yahoo for terms related to the 2006 US midterm elections from
November 3, 2006 to November 6, 2006.
We found virtual y no political ads on Yahoo. Yahoo searches on candidate names returned
poorly-targeted e-commerce ads. For example, a Yahoo search george al en returned paid
results from AOL Movies, Gifts.com, Dealtime, PeopleFinders, FindPeopleToday, etc. (Figure 1)
This observation suggests political organizations have largely ignored Yahoo as an advertising
channel.
Accordingly, we focus our analysis on paid search on Google AdWords.
Using FireFox with cookies disabled, we searched Google 11 times for 14 candidate names in
swing US Senate elections, yielding 154 searches over the last few days of the campaign.
Candidate names used as search queries were bob casey, bob corker, conrad burns, george
al en, harold ford, jim pederson, jim talent, jim webb, jon kyl, jon tester, lincoln chafee, mike
dewine, rick santorum, sherrod brown (Table 1).
We also conducted general political searches (ie war on terror, war in iraq, iraq policy, national
security, control of congress, house of representatives, close elections, economic policy, bush
popularity, republican base, democratic base, election turnout, congressional elections). We
found little campaign advertising on these general terms. Accordingly, we focus our analysis on
candidate names.
Table 2 presents the 569 paid search ads displayed on these 154 Google queries. This and other
tables in this report are available online at rimmkaufman.com/articles/election06.
Note that Google may serve different paid search ads for the same query based on the user’s
geography, prior searches, and other factors. Different users conducting identical searches
during this time frame may have received different Google ads than we did.
Advertisers
The most prevalent advertiser was Accoona.com, a search engine associated with the Chinese
government, appearing on 56% of the 154 searches. In close second was Gather.com, a social
networking site aimed at the 35-and-over demographic, appearing on 47% of searches.
CafePress.com, an e-commerce site offering personalized products, came in third, appearing on
29% of the searches. The fourth most prevalent advertiser on this query set was the National
Republican Senatorial Committee (gopsenators.com), appearing on 28% of the searches.
Table 3 presents counts of ads by advertiser.
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Competition
Google search pages can contain 8 to 12 ads. Google sel s these spots to advertisers using a
dynamic real-time auction. On typical e-commerce searches on competitive terms (dvd, business
computer, flowers), every slot on the first page of search results is fil ed.
This was not the case for these searches. Even on the day prior to the election, the ad slots on
Google search results pages were largely empty.
The average number of ads returned by a query in this search set was 3.7 (Table 4)
Red v. Blue
We characterized each ad as “red” (pro-Republican or anti-Democrat), “blue” (pro-Democrat or
anti-Republican), “other” (political, but neither pro-Democrat nor pro-Republican), or “neither” (not
supporting any political party).
58% of these ads did not support a political party. These were ads from CafePress (campaign
products) and ads from news sites (election information).
Red advertising dominated blue: 26% of these ads in the sample were “red” (pro-Republican or
anti-Democrat), versus only 16% “blue” (pro-Democrat or anti-Republican).
We observed three instances of ads (0.5%) run by the Libertarian party. These were trigged by
the search phrase rick santorum and criticized both major parties (“Vote Libertarian in 2006 Don't
waste your vote on the two old parties. Vote Libertarian”)
Negative Ads
We characterized an ad as “negative” ad if it used negative language to characterize a politician
or party.
Table 5 presents the ads characterized as negative.
Blue ads were much more likely to be negative than red. 63% of blue ads were negative, versus
23% of red. This difference was statistical y significant (chi-sq(1)=37.6, p=0.000).
The most negative ad in the sample was by blogpac.org on the phrase george al en, accusing the
campaign of assaulting a constituent (“George Al en Beat Me Up Watch video of Al en staffers
attacking a constituent - BlogPAC www.blogpac.org”)
Ad Length
Google AdWords consist of a 25 character title fol owed by 70 characters of text; thus, an
Adwords ad has a maximum length of 95 characters, including spaces.
Blue ads were typical y longer than red ads by 9 characters, and this difference was statistical y
significant (83.4 vs. 74.4, t=5.8, p=0.000). There was no significant difference between the
average length of words in red versus blue ads.
Ad Copy
No blue or red campaign ads mentioned President Bush.
The word “Bush” only occurred in ads for littledemocrats.com (“Why Mommy is a Democrat The
book George Bush doesn't want your kids to read!”), running on the phrase sherrod brown.
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23 three ads mentioned “Iraq”. These were anti-Jim Webb ads run by
www.stopidioticforeignpolicy.com (“Webb and Bin Laden Both Agree We Should Leave Iraq Now -
Be Smart - Vote Al en” and “Webb Wants the U.S. to leave Iraq now--so does Al-Qaeda--So who
gets your vote?”) running on the phrases jim webb and george al en.
Blue ads were more likely than red to include an exclamation point (18% vs. 9%, chi-sq(1)=4.4,
p=0.03).
Red ads were more likely than blue to contain a question mark (33% vs. 7%, chi-sq(1)=20.8,
p=0.000).
The words “help” and “now” occurred frequently in these ads. Both red and blue ads used the
word “help” frequently (27% of ads). 27% of red ads contained “now”, versus 0% for blue ads
(chi-sq(1)=28.9, p=0.000).
Video And YouTube
Only two ads linked to video clips, both on YouTube. These were attack ads against Senator
George Al en discussing his prescription drug policy and his “Macaca” comment.
Tracking
While it is difficult to assess the sophistication of an advertiser simply by inspecting their paid
search ads, we suspect most political pay-pay-click advertisers are less advanced than their e-
commerce counterparts. Only 30% of destination URLs contained tracking codes to enable the
advertiser to monitor the traffic from the ad. Most of these embedded tracking codes tracked only
the referring engine (“sid=google”) rather than a specific ad.
Conclusions
We believe political pay-per-click advertising is in its infancy. We base this opinion on the low
utilization, limited tracking, Google-only perspective, and name-only search emphasis. Because
of the greater cost efficiency of pay-per-click advertising, we predict campaigns and political
action committees wil move aggressively into paid search advertising as a marketing channel in
future elections.
# # #
The Rimm-Kaufman Group, LLC is a online marketing agency based in Charlottesvil e, Virginia.
We help major retailers run pay-per-click search campaigns effectively. We provide web
effectiveness consulting to help advertisers better convert their search traffic. Reach us online at
www.rimmkaufman.com, or cal us at 434.970.1010.
Rimm-Kaufman Group LLC
2300 Commonwealth Drive
Charlottesvil e VA 22906
www.rimmkaufman.com
434.970.1010
More information:
George Michie, 434.970.1010
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Figure1: Yahoo Search for “George Al en”
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Table 1: Selected Queries
bob casey
bob corker
conrad burns
george al en
harold ford
jim pederson
jim talent
jim webb
jon kyl
jon tester
lincoln chafee
mike dewine
rick santorum
sherrod brown
Table 2: Query Results
(omitted for space, available online at rimmkaufman.com/election06)
Table 3: Advertisers
Display URL
Count
www.accoona.com
87
election2006.gather.com
73
www.cafepress.com
44
www.gopsenators.com
43
www.nfib.com
42
virginia
29
www.drummajorinstitute.org
26
www.townhal .com
22
www.defeatconradburns.com
22
www.stopidioticforeignpolicy.com
22
moviefone.com
19
abcnews.com
14
www.ricksantorum.com
14
www.nytimes.com/
11
littledemocrats.net
10
webbforsenate.com
10
www.bal otamerica.com
8
www.fightforusa.com
8
www.wherescasey.com
8
www.bobcaseyatty.com
6
www.al posters.com
6
youtube.com/watch?v=9g7gq7gq
6
democracyonline.us
5
www.claireonline.com
4
www.bobcasey.com
4
www.moveon.org
3
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www.lp.org/ga/lesser.shtml
3
www.nytimes.com
3
jonkyl.blogspot.com
3
www.alipac.us
3
www.amazon.com
2
pol ingpoint.com
2
www.talentforsenate.com
2
nomoreblather.com
2
www.rhrealitycheck.org
1
www.cafepress.com/ovaloffice08
1
find.people.public-records-
now.com
1
Table 4: Paid Ads Per Search Results Page
Number Paid Ads
Fraction Searches
1
5%
2
25%
3
24%
4
18%
5
10%
6
8%
7
5%
8
5%
Table 5: Negative Ads
Search
Negative Ad
bob casey
Bob casey Can you help us find him? Where does he stand?
bob casey
Where's Bob Casey Jr.? Can you help us find him? Where does he stand?
bob corker
GOP National Debt $8,569,072,965,381 USA Sold to China.
bob corker
Republican National Debt $8,569,072,965,381 $171,000 for each child.
bob corker
Republican National Debt $8,569,072,965,381 USA Sold to China.
conrad
burns
Burns Earns An "F" View Senator Conrad Burns ' middle-class voting record here
conrad
burns
Defeat Conrad Burns Conrad is the third LEAST POPULAR Senator with a 40% approval rating.
conrad
burns
Defeat Conrad Burns Conrad pledged to only serve TWO terms!
conrad
burns
Defeat Conrad Burns Help defeat a senator with ties to to convicted felon Jack Abramoff
conrad
burns
Defeat Conrad Burns Ultra-Wealthy TEXAN Pouring Tons of Money Into Anti-Tester Ads!
george
al en
Al en Earns An "F" View Senator George Al en 's middle-class voting record here
george
al en
George Al en Beat Me Up Watch video of Al en staffers attacking a constituent - BlogPAC www.blogpac.org
george
al en
George Al en on tape Watch arrogant George cal Webb campaign's volunteer macaca.
george
al en
Sen. Al en Sold Out VA $219k Bought his Vote for High Drug Prices. Who's He Real y Represent? www.youtube.com
george
al en
Webb and Bin Laden Both Agree We Should Leave Iraq Now - Be Smart - Vote Al en
george
al en
Webb Wants the U.S. to leave Iraq now--so does Al-Qaeda--So who gets your vote?
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harold ford
Ford Earns An "F" View Rep. Harold Ford 's middle-class voting record here
jim talent
Talent Earns An "F" View Senator James Talent 's middle-class voting record here
jim webb
Webb and Bin Laden Both Agree We Should Leave Iraq Now - Be Smart - Vote Al en
jim webb
Webb Wants the U.S. to leave Iraq now--so does Al-Qaeda--So who gets your vote?
jon kyl
Kyl Earns An "F" View Senator Jon Kyl 's middle-class voting record here
jon tester
Defeat Conrad Burns Conrad is the third LEAST POPULAR Senator with a 40% approval rating.
jon tester
Defeat Conrad Burns Conrad pledged to only serve TWO terms!
jon tester
Defeat Conrad Burns Help defeat a senator with ties to to convicted felon Jack Abramoff
jon tester
Defeat Conrad Burns Ultra-Wealthy TEXAN Pouring Tons of Money Into Anti- Tester Ads!
mike
dewine
DeWine Earns An "F" View Senator Mike DeWine 's middle-class voting record here
rick
santorum
Santorum Earns An "F" View Senator Rick Santorum 's middle-class voting record here
rick
santorum
Vote Libertarian in 2006 Don't waste your vote on the two old parties. Vote Libertarian
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